> The error messages I see are the same each time I've tried this.
> As the first floppy is loaded, I get the following warnings:
>
> fd0c: hard error reading fsbn0
> fd0: controller status: state 17 (st0 70<abnormal, seek-cmplt, drv_chck> cyl 0)

I got this same message when I was installing netbsd-1.5.2 on my SparcII.
I thought the drive was bad but it turned out that the disks were. I also
found out the following:

* 'fdformat' on sparcs doesn't seem to work => use rawrite on DOS/Windows
* 'eject floppy' produces a controller error => use 'eject /dev/fd0a'
* Installing via ftp works very well

HTH,
Beaker